142
PARTISAN REVIEW
dear fellow?"-"Can't you hear it then? Can't you hear the terrible
voice that is crying out the whole length of the horizon and which is
usually known as silence? Ever since I came to the quiet valley I've
j
heard it incessantly, it won't let me sleep; yes, vicar, if only I could
r
sleep again some day!"- Then, shaking his head, he moved on.
Oberlin returned to Waldbach, intending to send somebody back
for Lenz, when he heard him walk up to his room. A moment later
something burst in the courtyard with such a mighty noise that Oberlin
thought it could not possibly be caused by the fall of a human body.
The nursemaid came up to him, deathly pale and trembling all over....
7
With cold resignation he sat in the carriage as they drove west
along the valley. He did not care where they were taking him. Several
times, when the carriage was endangered by the bad roads, he remained
sitting there, perfectly calm; he did not care at all. In this state of mind
he passed over the mountains. Toward evening they reached the Rhine
valley. They gradually left the mountains behind; now like a crystal
wave the mountains rose against the red sky, a deep blue crystal wave
on whose warm flood the red rays of evening played; a shimmering,
bluish web covered the plain at the foot of the mountain range.
It
grew
darker as they approached Strasbourg; a high, full moon, all the more
distant landmarks in darkness, only the mountain nearest to them still
in sharp relief; the earth was like a golden eup over which the gold wavC's
of the moon ran foaming. Lenz stared at it all, not an idea, not an
emotion inside him; only a blunted fear that grew more intense as th e
landmarks lost themselves more and more in the darkness. They had to
turn in for the night. Then once again he made several attempts to lay
hands on himself, but he was too well guarded.
On the following morning, in dull, rainy weather, he arrived in
Strasbourg. He seemed quite reasonable, talked to all sorts of people.
He did everything just as the others did; but there was a terrible
emptiness inside him, he no longer felt any fear, any desire, his existence
was a burden to him, a burden he must bear.
So he lived on. .. .
1
.J.
H.
J
ung-Stilling (1740-1817) was a Pietist; the first part of his long
autobiographical novel was published by Goethe in 1777; five other volumes
followed in the course of his life.
2 Christoph Kaufmann ( 1753-1795 ) lived at Winterthur, Switzerland, where
Lenz stayed with him for some months. He was the writer of ab,tr\lse tracts for
the betterment of mankind and a protege of Lavatcr's. He had made the ac–
quaintance of L enz at Weimar in 1776 and visited Lenz's relatives in Livonia
during a tour of Europe in the following year.
